Christmas Day, 25 December 2012, Luke 2:1-14; John 1:1-18

Gerrit(Gerard) van Honthorst: Adoration of the Shepherds (1622)

(This homily was designed both for Midnight Mass and for Mass during the day of Christmas Day)

Santa is cool, but Jesus is King!

This year, my parents became grandparents for the first time, and I became an Uncle for the first time as well. I also became a godfather for the first time, as my brother and his partner honoured me by asking me to stand for their first-born child. Her name is Aoibheann. She was born at about 5:30 on the evening of June 19th last, and she has changed all of our lives. She has a wonderful personality; she seems to have great independence and she seems to have become a bit of a Daddy's girl as well! Her Mother is wonderful with her, maybe because she works in childcare so she has no fears about how to look after her child.

I'm sure many of you have had the wonderful experience of holding a new-born baby for the first time. Two men that I know, sharing with me their experience of holding their new-born baby for the first time, described it to me as a life-changing moment. One of them described how his heart melted as he held his first son, the other described how he felt that nothing else mattered except his daughter. An image that I have for it is like putting on glasses – everything becomes clearer, there are no doubts about how we must adjust our own lives in order to love and care for a child.

Tonight we celebrate the birth of a child. And, like all children, this child is very special. This child's mother would fret over him and worry about him and love him, like any mother would. And, sadly, like so many, this child's mother would see him die a painful death on the cross.

This child would not be a magician, but rather would be 'Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace' as our first reading from the prophet Isaiah tells us.

The Incarnation

So, the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, the story of Emmanuel, of God-with-Us, is the story of the incarnation.

If you have ever visited Italy, you might remember ordering from a menu in a restaurant – they always have a section called 'Carne' – which is the meat section. There you will find beef and lamb, maybe veal or venison. A more literal translation in English of the word 'Carne' would not be 'meat', but 'flesh'.

So, to become 'in-carn-ate' is to become flesh, not just to be 'enfleshed' but to 'become flesh'. There are many religions and philosophies that look upon our flesh as corrupted, as bad, as evil. But, for us Christians all flesh – all carne is holy, because God became flesh in Jesus.

Santa is cool, but Jesus is King!

I know that tonight, along with Jesus, a very special person will be coming to visit all of the houses of the world to bring glad tidings and presents, especially for all the good boys and girls. And Santa, Father Christmas, or indeed St. Nicholas, as he is sometimes known, comes to give us presents to tell us how special all children really are, but especially Santa comes to tell us how special Jesus really is.

So, when we are really good, when we go to bed early and shut our eyes and go to sleep, we can be sure that Santa will come to give us presents in honour of the baby Jesus. In a way, that tells us that Jesus is already inside every boy and girl, indeed in every man and woman, because Santa comes to give us presents to honour Jesus.

Santa is cool, but Jesus is King!

3 Sunday Advent, 16 December 2012, Luke 3:10-18

A few years ago, sitting over lunch a classmate of mine was talking about how he would help out on his family farm over the holidays. For whatever reason, he got around to explaining the whole process of dairy farming to us. Needless to say, many of us, coming from the countryside had a reasonable idea what he was on about. A friend of mine from Dublin, listening to the conversation churped up: "Don't be silly, sure we all know that milk comes from the supermarket. Milk from a cow! You must take us for idiots altogether!"

Now, we all knew that this friend of mine was kidding around. We all know that milk does, in fact, come from cows.

Many of the images that we have from the gospels are agricultural images – and at that they are images from a time when agricultural technology was much more primitive than it is now. The image from this Sunday's gospel of a winnowing fan is a great example of this. A winnowing fan is a small, hand held basket. The winnower uses the fan to throw the grain in the air. By moving the grain in this way, the heavier grain falls more or less straight down, while the chaff, a much finer and lighter substance is carried away to the side. And so, you are left with clean grain, ready to mill into flour.

A Winnowing Fan

We never see winnowing happen today because most of us do not live on the land. We find our grain, i.e. our bread, on the baker's shelf, or indeed like my friend said – on the supermarket shelf. It requires imagination and knowledge for us to understand the image that the gospel is presenting us with today.

The most interesting part of the image from the gospel is that the chaff is part of the grain. Eventually it becomes a waste product, but before that it serves a very useful purpose in being part of the grain.

That is just like us as human beings. Often all we can see is the chaff – we cannot see our own greatness, or worse we cannot see the greatness in others. All we can see is waste. We forget that, when the time is right, we will be 'winnowed'. That means that we are disturbed, thrown up in the air, as it were, so that the separating and purifying breath of God's Holy Spirit would purify us of the chaff that was necessary for us to grow into the fullness of life.

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday. It is one of only two Sundays in the Church's year when rose coloured vestments can be used. Today is the Sunday that the rose coloured candle is lit on the Advent wreath. Gaudete is a latin word that means: 'Rejoice'. And for us, our reason for rejoicing is the Lord, for it is the Lord who reveals us as worthy grain, ready to be milled into the flour of the bread of the Eucharist – which is to be Christ in the world. We become what we receive.

From the entrance antiphon for today's Mass, taken from St Paul's letter to the Philippians: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!"

2 Sunday Advent, 9 December 2012, Luke 3:1-6

Maybe you saw in the news during the week that China plans to spend over £2.2bn to flatten 700 mountains. The headline in the Guardian newspaper read: "China to flatten 700 mountains for new metropolis in the desert". (Click Here to read about it in the Guardian newspaper)

Reading that for the first time, I was quite astonished. The Lanzhou area, where the mountains currently are, will be the location of a brand new city, with a possible development area of 500 square miles.

Our gospel reading, and the first reading from the prophet Baruch, both promise the same thing. In the gospel: "Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled in, every mountain will be laid low, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth." In the first reading from Baruch: "For God has decreed the flattening of each high mountain, of the everlasting hills, the filling in of the valleys to make the ground level so that Israel can walk in safety under the glory of God."

The line from the prophet Baruch that we have just heard again highlights what this Sunday is all about. It is about the flattening of mountains, the straightening of paths; in the gospel it is to prepare a way for the Lord – in the first reading it is to prepare a way for Israel to 'walk in safety under the glory of God.'

So, our readings this morning are pointing at the Church. What is the Church? What is the Church's mission? And why am I here? Why are you here? Some of the answers to these questions are quite interesting. Theologians say that there are four aspects of the Church – or, rather that throughout history there have been four developments of the Church: there is the Church that all of creation is, not just the earth of course, but of the whole universe. And there is a strange harmony to the universe that science speaks about – a kind of song that the universe is singing all the time. For us, that song used to appear on our television screens as 'snow', as a kind of interference. But, so they say, that snow was actually sound of the echo of the big bang down through the universe.

The second phase of the Church is the People of God, Israel, the chosen people. And this new people comes about because of God's choice to reveal himself to them – and God's revealing himself is what gathers them together; twelve tribes of Israel, one People of God.

The third phase of the Church is the Church of Christ, which we are members of. This is the Church, the gathering that occurs around Jesus Christ because of his passion, death and resurrection. That is us, that is what we are doing. We are gathering around the Lord today, and each day we come to Church.

The fourth dimension of the Church is the Kingdom to come. The heavenly Jerusalem. When we shall see God face to face.

So, when we ask ourselves why do we go to Church on Sunday, very often we will come up with answers from our own point of view. 'I go because I get something out of it.' 'I need my faith', 'I like to pray', 'God is important in my life', 'My parents gave me the gift of faith.' All of these answers are from our own point of view. But maybe a better or more profound answer is that the Lord calls us to gather as one People of God, as one Gathering unto the Lord, so that we may prepare for the Day of Christ and the heavenly city of Jerusalem.

1 Sunday Advent, 2 December 2012, Luke 21:25-28, 34-36.

A new beginning, a fresh start!

The Church begins it's new year this Sunday. This is a new liturgical year. This is a new opportunity for us to begin again in our faith. For us, and by us I mean us human beings in the Ireland of 2012, it is easy to somehow disregard faith, to stand back from it – to keep it at a safe distance from ourselves. The way that we think in our time creates this 'safe-distance' possibility. We think that we can hold faith, Church, God at a distance. But God comes, the gospel warns us, like a thief in the night.

A friend of mine was recently driving down the M7 motorway in County Kildare. She was driving a brand new car. She was driving relatively slowly for the motorway, about 100km/h. Suddenly she had a blowout. Her tyre punctured violently and she lost control of the car. Thankfully the car veered to the left, no other car was involved, and she was able to chalk it down to experience. She posted photos of the shredded tyre on the internet afterwards. People reacted in many ways: Thank God you're all safe; you should sue the tyre company; you should sue the car manufacturer; what a blessing that your children weren't in the car!

In our world we can be removed from reality and the story I just told explains what I mean: it is a reality that each and every time we drive our cars we are engaging in a dangerous activity. We believe that if we maintain our cars, replace them when they are old, drive safely and efficiently, that if we keep the rules of the road and all of the other good, safe and lawful things we should do, that nothing bad should happen. And most of the time, we are right. But sometimes bad things do happen, as we all know. I'm not telling you all of this to make you afraid of getting in your car. As you know, there is hardly any activity that we can be involved in that is completely without danger. I'm thinking, for example, of the family that died in their home in Gurteen a couple of years ago from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. They never knew that their house was dangerous. And, we can't really go around in life imagining that we're going to be badly hurt or fatally injured by our life's activity. So, I'm not trying to scare you, but rather to encourage you to change the way you think about things. In fact, let me tell you another story to emphasise the point.

Almost ten years ago, a friend and I were travelling in Kenya. We stayed with the Irish Christian Brothers in Nairobi, the capital city. The only way that we could get around was by 'Matatu'. Now, Matatu's are like old Toyota Hiace vans, converted with windows and bench seats inside. They carry up to 27 people in each one. They were a cheap and cheerful way of getting around the city. One day, my friend and I were waiting to get into a Matatu to make our way into the city centre. While waiting, I read in the local paper about 24 people having been killed in an accident involving a Matatu the day before. Both my friend and I were agreed that we really should not get into another Matatu especially after reading about the horrific accident. And yet, without agreeing to, we both calmly walked to the place where the Matatu's picked up passengers and got on board. We had no choice! We knew that it was dangerous, that we could pay the ultimate price, and yet we had to live. We had to continue on.

So, what am I trying to get at? Simply, we live in a buffered, constructed image of reality. Our centrally heated homes, tarmac roads, technology, travel, artificial whatever. We begin to think that what we have created, or rather what we have super-imposed on the world is reality. And that's not to mention all of our addictions or other things we do to relieve the pain of our existence.

Think of the fascination of 'virtual reality' a few years ago. Or, now the prevalance of facebook and the internet in our lives. A world that we know is virtual is slowly becoming our 'real' world. During the week I was listening on the radio to someone who mentioned that people are more honest now in their dealings by internet because they know that everything they do online is somehow captured forever somewhere!

Real moments occur when something breaks this image of reality that we have created. When a family member is diagnosed with cancer, or when a loved one dies – our image of reality shatters and we encounter reality itself. And it is a painful experience. For many of us, the only time that we encounter reality in this way is, as I have said, when something tragic occurs.

A few years ago, when I was newly ordained, a religious congregation of sisters asked me to preach a day of recollection for them. It's like a mini-retreat that they undergo once a month. In preparation for this day, the sisters often went to confession in the days beforehand, or indeed on the day itself. They were aware that this was an element of their monthly schedule, something that they had done since they had entered the religious life. An interesting question that they had from their statutes, from the constitution governing their life as religious, a question that they were to ask each month on this day of recollection is: "Am I prepared for death?" That is, have I faced my own mortality squarely. And, as we mature as people and as Christians that question begins to provoke very deep questions for us. If I ask myself each day, week, month, or even like this season of Advent: "Am I ready to meet my creator, my redeemer, the one who draws me into communion with himself and with all of humanity?" This is a 'reality check' question.

The mystery of the incarnation, of God becoming one of us,  this mystery that we are on the cusp of now in Advent is no safe thing. It is the most disturbing and strange of mysteries. In a way, the incarnation is the most 'real' aspect of our faith. And, like other aspects of life that disturb us, that pull the fraudulent image of reality that we have constructed down, we need time to process reality. We need time to prepare ourselves to think differently about it, about who Jesus really is. And, to think differently means that in some way we have to disregard the safe place of how our world thinks.

People often want to know what prayer really is, and how they can become better at prayer, or how they can be successful at prayer. I have some advice for you, prayer is a two-way encounter – it is an encounter with God and it is an encounter with my deepest self. The Pope, some years ago, described prayer as a crucible place. A focal point, where everything meets. A crucible is not a comfortable place. So, if we really want to succeed at prayer, if we want to develop spiritually, as Christians we have to be ready to face reality when we pray. Prayer is not an escape from reality, neither is it a deeper version of the so-called reality that ourselves create, no, prayer is a deep encounter with the real. And, for us, the real is a person who gently waits for us and calls us forward in faith.

Meeting Jesus changes our lives, it provokes a deep contrition in our hearts not simply for the sins we have committed, but for the fact of our unfaithfulness to him, our unfaithfulness to reality. And real contrition provokes a real sorrow, which is not at all a feeling sorry for ourselves, nor is it being hung up with our own sinfulness, but rather a sorrow for the gap that exists between me, God and others. And this real sorrow, born of real contrition will provoke in us real conversion, which is to say that we encounter the Lord in a real way, a sure way.

For us Christians, God is no judge, sitting in the heavens counting up our good and our bad deeds. By keeping the rules we cannot earn brownie points with God. No, for us Christians, God is intimately involved in our everyday lives. And God became one of us in Jesus so that we might become one with God and with all of our brothers and sisters in humanity and in Christ.

We imagine God maybe safely in the tabernacle, locked away in the Church. God is something that only holy, religious people encounter.

We couldn't be further from the truth. God is with us; God is among us. And our prayer together in these weeks of Advent is a waiting that prepares us to encounter God with us, God amongst us, in our neighbours and friends, in those who believe in God and those who don't, in those who live good lives and those who live bad lives, God is with us.

So, being a Christian is not at all a safe thing. Like my friend and I getting on the Matatu, we have to just jump into faith, even though it means risking not less than everything. We have to take the risk of getting involved, because one day, whether we like it or not, one day our image of reality will break and we will meet God face to face. This life isn't a rehearsal for the life you will lead someday. This is real life, here today, in this moment. So, as our gospel for this first Sunday of Advent puts it:

"... stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand."